Honors the joy and simplicity of childhood.
Two neighborhood children become friends through their art.
Kayla and Mateo live in buildings across from each other; they often look out at each other through their windows. They create drawings and then exchange them using a creaky old retractable clothesline that runs between their two buildings. Their art depicts everyday items such as the foods their loved ones prepare for them, as well as grand stories drawn from their imaginations. The two embark on fantastical imagined journeys together and even invent new dinosaur species, such as the Pastelito-saurus, inspired by the pastelitos made by Mateo’s mami. When the clothesline is unexpectedly taken down to be repaired, Kayla, Mateo, and their neighbors turn the surrounding sidewalks, playgrounds, and building walls into a shared canvas of expression. Sparse yet satisfying text and dialogue, including playful use of onomatopoeia, complement the captivating digital illustrations, created from collaged tissue paper and Photoshop. The bright and colorful illustrations are the star of this work. Images of Kayla and Mateo immersed in their loose-lined doodles of their imagined worlds are a delight; readers will enjoy examining the spreads and finding new details on every page. Kayla presents Black, while Mateo, who is brown-skinned, is cued as Latine; a reference to piraguas, a Puerto Rican dessert, suggests that Kayla might be Afro-Latine.
Honors the joy and simplicity of childhood. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780063235106
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children.
Interior decorator and TV personality Gaines invites readers to open their eyes and exercise their imaginations.
There’s a world to be explored out there—and only children can really take part. What does “looking for wonder” entail? Slowing down and looking up, around, and everywhere. At the outset, a group of eager, racially diverse young friends—including one who uses a wheelchair—are fully prepared for a grand adventure. They offer tips about how and where to look: Why, there’s a “grand parade” of marching ants! And, these kids add, perspective is key. A rainy day might signal gloom to some, but to those filled with wonder, showers bring “magic puddles for play”; a forest is “an enchanted world,” the ocean conceals “a spectacular city,” and the night sky boasts “extraordinary sights.” The takeaway: “Wonder is never in short supply.” It’s a robust, empowering message, as is the exhortation to “keep your mind open, and let curiosity guide the way.” Youngsters are also advised to share their discoveries. The upbeat narrative is delivered in clunky verse, but the colorful cartoonish illustrations brimming with activity and good cheer (including some adorable anthropomorphized animals in the backgrounds) make up for the textual lapses and should motivate readers to embark on their own “wonder explorations.”
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781400247417
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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